Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Ba Dinh Square, Hanoi

Ba Dinh Square has special significance for the Vietnamese, as it was here that Ho Chi Minh declared the nation’s independence from France in front of a crowd of more than 100,000 people on 2 September 1945. Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum stands on the west side of Ba Dinh Square, a heavy grey structure, faced in stone quarried from Marble Mountain near Danang. Ho Chi Minh specifically requested that he be cremated and his ashes scattered in northern, central and southern Vietnam, symbolising the national unity to which he had devoted his life. After his death in 1969, power lay with communist hardliners led by anh ba or ‘second brother’ Le Duan, until the latter’s death in 1986. Only after Le Duan’s demise did Ho Chi Minh’s private secretary Vu Ky reveal that Le Duan and some other leading members of the Vietnamese Politburo had tampered with Ho’s final testament by deleting his request to be cremated.